Monday, April 2, 2012

According to local authorities in southern Uruzgan province, at least 11 Afghan local police forces have joined with the anti-government militant groups in this province.

Provincial counter-criminal department chief for southern Uruzgan province Gulab Khan said, at least 11 Afghan local police forces were lost and missing in Khas district of southern Uruzgan province and the Afghan security officials later found that the local police forces had joined the Taliban group.

In the meantime a spokesman for the Taliban group Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said, around 11 Afghan local police forces joined the Taliban fighters along with the weapons on Sunday.

This comes as an Afghan local police officer shot dead at least 9 of his colleagues on Friday in easter Paktika province.

The Afghan local police program has been assailed by rights advocates and many Afghans as bringing former Taliban and criminal elements into positions of armed authority.

In September 2011, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released an investigation report claiming that some members of the Afghan Local Police (ALP) were getting away with serious abuses including rape and murder.

In a similar incident an Afghan local policeman allowed Taliban to enter his guard post March 7 and kill nine of his fellow Afghan local police in the southern province of Oruzgan while an Afghan local policeman shot and killed a coalition soldier in Paktika province on Monday, the same province where Friday’s killings took place.

Dozens of Taliban fighters armed with latest weapons stormed Olai Check-post of the security forces near Salala area of teshil Bazai in Mohmand Agency on Monday, killing four security forces personnel while seven others went missing.

Official sources said that as the spring offensive has been kicked off in rugged regions of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, dozens of insurgents armed with automatic weapons in the wee hours rocked Olai Check post established by the security forces after the Salala Check-post was stormed by the Nato forces which created rift between the Pak-US relations.

“Four of our soldiers were martyred and seven are still missing after the attack,” an official said, adding that a search operation has been launched in the area.

Security forces immediately started a full scale operation against the insurgents and also to rescue the missing security men in the area, security sources said.

It is pertinent to be mentioned here that Olai Check-post in Mohmand Agency borders the Kunar province of Afghanistan and was established near the destroyed Salala check post. Most of the fugitive Taliban commanders and their foot-soldiers reside in their hideouts in the Kunar province and they frequently launch attack on Pakistani posts to enter Pakistani side of the border.

The Pakistani military says dozens of Taliban militants coming from Afghanistan attacked border posts in the northwest, killing four paramilitary soldiers.

The paramilitary Frontier Corps says Monday’s attack occurred in Olai, part of the Mohmand tribal area.

The attack in part of Pakistan’s restive tribal badlands, near the Afghan border, was beaten off when troops responded with artillery and heavy weapons, according to a spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC).

“Four of our soldiers were martyred and seven are still missing after the attack,” an official said, adding that a search operation has been launched in the area.

In the meantime a local official Siddiq Ullah said, “Militants attacked a Frontier Corps checkpost in Baizai area of Mohmand tribal region on Sunday night, which triggered a firefight, killing three troops and 14 rebels.”

Five troops were also injured and the militants had infiltrated Pakistan from Afghanistan’s northeastern Kunar province, he said.

KAHDAHAR, Afghanistan, April 2 (Xinhua) -- An Afghan army soldier was killed and three other soldiers injured when a bicycle bomb targeted their vehicle Monday in Kandahar city, capital of southern Kandahar province, police said.

"A bomb attached to a bicycle went off at about 1:00 p.m. local time in Kandahar city when a vehicle of Afghan National Army (ANA) passed by leaving one soldier dead and three other soldiers injured," provincial police chief General Abdul Raziq told Xinhua.

The blast scene was cordoned off by police shortly after the explosion and the injured were admitted to a hospital in the city, some 450 km south of Afghan capital Kabul.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Afghan and NATO-led troops have intensified cleanup operations against Taliban and other militant groups throughout the country recently as spring and summer, known as "fighting season", are drawing near.

Kandahar, the birthplace of Taliban, has seen increasing militancy despite continued military operations there.

ADEN, Yemen, April 2 (Xinhua) -- The Yemeni army forces shelled two suspected al-Qaida positions in the southern province of Abyan on Monday, killing at least six militants, including a local leader of the terrorist group, a military official told Xinhua.

The army barracks conducted a heavy bombardment against two hideouts of the al-Qaida members on the outskirts of Zinjibar, the provincial capital of Abyan, the local military official said on condition of anonymity.

"A foreign local leader of the al-Qaida and five militants were killed during the army shelling on their hideouts in Zinjibar. The dead fighters were buried in the nearby insurgents-controlled town of Jaar," the official said.

In the southern Aden province, government troops and suspected al-Qaida assailants traded machine-gun fire late on Sunday night around the Mansoura central prison, with no immediate reports of casualties, a police officer told Xinhua anonymously.

"This is the second armed attack targeting the jail in less than two weeks. The al-Qaida gunmen are repeatedly attempting to free some of their counterparts held by the government authorities, using force and grenade attacks," the officer said.

Abyan's provincial capital of Zinjibar city along with a number of southern towns have been under al-Qaida control for nearly a year.

Militants of the Yermen-based al-Qaida branch locally known as Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic Law) have been working to bolster their presence in Yemen's restive southern regions, exploiting the weakening of the central government and the security collapse.

ADEN, Yemen, April 1 (Xinhua) -- Militants of the Yemen-based al-Qaida branch on Sunday shot dead 15 army soldiers held captives during Saturday's fighting in the southern province of Lahj, a military official told Xinhua.

A total of 15 army soldiers from the 119th Brigade who were held captives by the al-Qaida militants during Saturday's battles were killed in the desert between Lahj and Abyan provinces by the terrorist group members, the local military official said on condition of anonymity.

"A number of soldiers are still missing from Saturday's attack that targeted an army base in al-Mallah town in the southern province of Lahj, close to the insurgents-controlled city of Jaar in Abyan. Searching for the missing troops is underway," the official said.

Witnesses confirmed to Xinhua that many dead bodies of the army soldiers were found scattered in different places in the suburbs of Lahj province following the fierce fighting.

The al-Qaida spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

On Saturday, up to 20 al-Qaida militants stormed an army barrack of the 201st Mechanized Army Brigade in Lahj province, killing at least 20 soldiers, according to an army officer.

The army troops fought back and killed at least eight militants and injured dozens of others from both sides, the officer added.

A day after the fighting, a group of unidentified gunmen believed to be from the al-Qaida militants raided a military checkpoint of the security forces in the Shibam district in southeastern Hadramout province, killing at least seven soldiers at the scene, a security official said.

The Yemeni army and security forces have recently been attacked by the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in the restive southern regions. Hundreds of government troops were either killed or injured during deadly suicide bombings and fierce battles with al-Qaida insurgents in the province of Abyan during the past two months.

Taking advantage of the one-year-long political conflicts, the resurgent AQAP, locally known as Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic Law), has taken control of several cities and swathes across the country's restive southern provinces.

BAMAKO, April 2 (Xinhua) -- The administrator of Bourem, a region in Gao in northern Mali, was killed by Tuareg rebels, local residents reported on Sunday.

The residents said the administrator, Mohamed Sidibe, attempted to flee with his family on Saturday, after learning that the rebels of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) were going to attack Gao.

A resident of Bourem said the MNLA fighters took away the vehicle of the administrator and his body was returned on Sunday. His wife was also reportedly killed.

Residents in another northern region of Sevare went on panic after learning that the Tuareg rebels were preparing to attack their town.

The Malian soldiers and civilians who fled from Gao, Niafunke and Timbuktu are taking refuge in Sevare.

For the first time since they took arms the 1960s, the rebels have taken the northern towns in pursuit of independence of an Azawad land comprising Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal.

The rebels apparently took advantage of the coup on March 22, when the junta declared takeover from President Amadou Toumani Toure, citing his failure to provide means for the military to curb Tuareg rebels in the north.

“His name is U.S. Army Specialist James Dutton, he's from Checotah, Okla.,
and he fixes fire trucks. There's more. He's the only service member in
Southern Afghanistan that can fix fire trucks, and if that's not
enough, he even goes to some places in Western Afghanistan to fix them,”
according to a Feb. 15, 2010, post on the Department of Defense Live
blog.

Dutton was a 2006 graduate of Weleetka High School, and he graduated from basic combat training at Fort Jackson, Columbia, S.C., according to a November 2006 story in the Muskogee Phoenix.

Dutton is the son of James and Trina Dutton, of Checotah, and brother of Roxanne Dutton Gibson, of Weleetka, the newspaper reported.

Nearly two dozen people were wounded in twin blasts in northern Baghlan province on Monday morning, local officials said.

The
first blast took place in a market in the Baghlan-e-Markazi district at
08 am and the second blast happened when the Afghan security forces
arrived to determine the cause of the first blast at the scene,
provincial police chief, Asadullah Shirzad told TOLOnews.

Nineteen Afghan civilians and four Afghan policemen were wounded in the blasts, he added.

The victims were taken to a nearby hospital in the province.

Mr
Shirzad said that police have started investigating the incidents in
Baghlan-e-Markazi, a relatively insecure area in the province.

No
group including the Taliban has claimed responsibility for the blasts.
Hezb-e Islami of Hekmatyar has been behind several similar incidents in
the district.

According to local authorities in
northern Baghlan province, at least 23 people were injured following 2
separate roadside bomb explosions in this province.

The officials further added, the
incident took place early Monday morning around 7:30 am local time Sher
Market in central Baghlan district.

An official at the district hospital Dr.
Kahlil-ur-Rahman Narmgo said, at least 23 people who were injured
following the incident were taken to this hospital so far.

He also added, at least 12 school students, 5 Afghan security forces and 6 Afghan civilians were injured during the incident.

He also said, at least 6 of the individuals who were injured during the explosion are in a critical health condition.

District chief for central Baghlan
district Amir Gul Hussain Khel confirming the incident said there were
no immediate reports regarding the exact number of casualties as a
result of the explosion, adding that the Afghan security force have
launched a probe into the incident.

In the meantime reports suggest central Baghlan district chief Gen. Gul Aqa was also among those injured during the incident.

No group including the Taliban militants have so far claimed responsibility behind the incident.

As a result of these operations, 17 armed insurgents were killed, two
wounded and 10 others were arrested by Afghan National Police.

Also, during these operations, Afghan National Police discovered and confiscated amount of light and heavy weapons.

During the same 24 hour period, Afghan National Police discovered and
defused nine different types of mines as a result of security operations
in Kunar, Nangarhar, Helmand, Maidan Wardak, and Khost provinces.

Witnesses in northern Mali told VOA that Tuareg rebels had reached Timbuktu and reported fighting and looting in the historic town.

Timbuktu was the last key city in the north that had not been taken by the rebels. Tuareg fighters seized the city of Gao from the Malian army late Saturday and the provincial capital, Kidal last week.

On Saturday, military junta leaders met with Burkina Faso's president, Blaise Compaore, in Ouagadougou to discuss ways to settle the Mali crisis.

The Mali representatives said President Compaore rejected their request for help battling the rebels in Mali and called for coup leaders to restore the constitution.
Renegade soldiers seized power from democratically elected President Amadou Toure on March 22, after accusing him of failing to provide the army with enough resources to tamp the Tuareg rebellion.

Heavily armed Tuareg rebels arrived in northern Mali after the fall of neighboring Libya, and they launched an insurgency in mid-January.

Tuareg separatists have been seeking autonomy for decades.

Meanwhile, Mali's coup leader says he has reinstated the country's constitution, a day before harsh economic sanctions were to be imposed if constitutional order was not restored.

During a news conference near the capital, Bamoko on Sunday, Captain Amadou Sanogo read a brief statement saying he had restored the state's previous constitution, which was adopted in 1992.

He also said state institutions had been restored and he vowed to organize the return of power to civilians. However, the coup leader did not provide a timeline for new elections.

The Economic Community of West African States ( ECOWAS ), which oversees a common currency in the region, threatened to impose crippling financial sanctions by Monday if power was not handed back to civilians.

According to local authorities in eastern Kunar province, Afghan security forces a truck laden with explosives in Asadabad city in this province.

The officials further added, the truck contained around 8 tons of explosives and at least 4 suspects were detained by Afghan security forces.

The explosives were displayed along with some checmicals to the reporters by local security forces.

According to local security officials, based on the intelligence reports the explosives were transported from Multan city of Pakistan and was taken to Afghanistan via Torkham border.

The militants were looking to create improvised explosive devices and carry out insurgency attacks using the explosives and chemicals, local security officials said.

Kunar province located in eastern Afghanistan is considered to be one of the volatile regions which is bordering Nuristan province where militants are often carrying out insurgency activities against the Afghan security forces.

In the meantime local security officials in western Farah province said, at least 6 militants were killed following a military operation in this province.

The operation resulted in the detention of multiple suspected insurgents
and 3,080 pounds (1,400 kilograms) of various narcotics. The narcotics
were destroyed on site and the detainees taken into ANSF custody.

In other International Security Assistance Force news throughout Afghanistan:

South

An Afghan-led security force captured a Taliban facilitator during an
operation in Daman district, Kandahar province, today. The facilitator
supplied insurgents throughout the district with weapons, ammunition and
equipment. He also participated in roadside bombings and other attacks
against Afghan and coalition security forces.